- Manuel Noriega
Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (born February 11, 1938) was a Panamanian general and the de facto military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989, despite never being the official President of Panama. He was initially a strong ally of the United States and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the late 1950s to 1986. By the late 1980s, relations had turned extremely tense between Noriega and the United States government, …
- Barry Seal
Adler Berriman Seal, or "Barry Seal" (July 16, 1939-February 19, 1986) was a pilot, allegedly with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and later drug smuggler turned Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant. After a 1984 arrest in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for money laundering and Quaalude smuggling, Seal negotiated a plea bargain that included him becoming an informant for the DEA and testifying against his former Colombian employers, …
- Ricky Ross
Ricky Donell "Freeway" Ross is a convicted crack cocaine dealer, noted for his influence in the drug's growth in use in the inner cities of the United States of America in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in Los Angeles.
- John Gilligan
John Gilligan (born March 29, 1952) is an Irish drug smuggler who has been implicated in the murder of Veronica Guerin, the first ever murder of a journalist in Ireland. In the years following her asassination, "Factory John" has become one of Ireland's most reviled gangsters.
- Juan Matta-Ballesteros
Juan Ramón Matta-Ballesteros, AKA Ramón Mata, AKA Juan Ramón Mata del Pozo, AKA Juan Ramón Matta Lopez, former drug lord with ties to the Medellín Cartel was born on January 12, 1945 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In April of 1988, he was kidnapped from his Tegucigalpa home by United States Marshals, he was sent to trial in the United States and convicted among other things, for the kidnap and assassination of Enrique Camarena.
- Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi
Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi (1985 or 1986 – January 26, 2007) was a Nigerian national convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore in a trial that was described by the United Nations human rights expert, Philip Alston, as failing to meet international legal standard for criminal prosecution. Drug trafficking carries a mandatory death sentence under Singapore's Misuse of Drugs Act, and despite pleas for clemency from Amnesty International, the United Nations, …
- Yair Klein
Yair Klein is an Israeli ex military and mercenary, who established a private mercenary company called Spearhead Ltd. Through Spearhead Ltd, Klein provided arms and training to armed forces in South America. Klein was accused of training several members of Colombian paramilitary groups and the militias of drug traffickers such as Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar Gaviria during the 1980s. Klein was convicted in 2002 by a Colombian court, …
- Vito Genovese
Vito 'Don Vitone' Genovese was a mafioso who rose to power in America during the Castellammarese War to later become leader of the Genovese crime family. Genovese served as mentor to many future mob bosses including Vincent "Big Chin" Gigante, Nephew Michael Genovese and Carlo Gambino. Genovese started his Mafia career serving Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria during the early 1920s after emigrating from Naples.
- Jamiel Chagra
Jamiel Alexander Chagra (born December 7, 1944 in El Paso, Texas) a.k.a 'Jimmy Chagra' was one of the largest and most prolific American marijuana traffickers operating out of Las Vegas and El Paso. He was implicated in the May 1979 assassination of John H. Wood, Jr. in San Antonio, Texas. Chagra was arrested in 1978 on charges of trafficking marijuana. He was to appear before Judge Wood.
- Quirino Paulino
Quirino Paulino Castillo (known as Quirino or the Don) is an ex-captain of the army of the Dominican Republic, and alleged boss of drug-trafficking organization responsible for importing tons of cocaine into the United States since at least September 2003. Castillo's personal fortune was estimated at RD$2 billion.
- Michael Tyrell
Michael Tyrell (b. 1946) is an Antigua-born drug trafficker who headed a drug ring along with his wife Julie Paterson, known as the "Cocaine Queen". In 1999, he and his wife were caught by authorities attempting to smuggle nearly half a ton of cocaine from Bequia into Great Britain, one of the largest ever to be smuggled into the country.
- John Holmes
John Curtis Holmes better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd (after the lead character in a series of related films), was one of the most famous male adult film stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and porno feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s, including at least one gay feature film and a handful of gay loops. He was best known for his exceptionally large penis, …
- James Burke
James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke (July 5, 1931 - April 13, 1996), was a murderous Irish-American gangster and Lucchese crime family associate who is believed to have organized the Lufthansa heist in 1978. He is the father of small-time mobster and Lufthansa heist suspect, Frank James Burke "Frankie", Jesse James Burke and Catherine Burke. Catherine married Bonanno crime family member Anthony Indelicato in 1992.
- Roy Demeo
Roy Albert DeMeo (September 7, 1940 - January 10, 1983) was a ranking member of the Gambino crime family, formerly one of the largest and most feared crime families in New York. He is most infamous for heading a crew of car thieves, drug dealers and murderers suspected by the FBI of somewhere between 75-200 murders from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The crew also gained notoriety due to their affinity for dismemberment as a method of disposing of their victims.
- Matteo Messina Denaro
Matteo Messina Denaro (Castelvetrano, April 26, 1962), also known as "Diabolik," is a Sicilian mafioso. He got his nickname from the Italian comic book character of the same name. He is considered to be one of the new leaders of Cosa Nostra after the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on April 11, 2006. Matteo Messina Denaro became known nationally on April 12, 2001, …
- Carmine Galante
Carmine Galante aka "Lilo," "Cigar" was the boss of the Bonanno crime family, a New York City Mafia crime organization from 1974 to 1979. He was rarely seen without a cigar clenched in his teeth, and, amazingly, died with a cigar still in his mouth, which led to his rather unimaginative nickname, "Cigar". The son of a fisherman who immigrated from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Galante was born in an East Harlem tenement.
- Joe Valachi
Joseph 'Joe Cargo' Valachi was the first Mafia member to publicly acknowledge the existence of the Mafia. He is also the person who made Cosa Nostra (meaning "this thing of ours") a household name. In October 1963, Valachi (a "soldier" in New York City's powerful Vito Genovese crime family, whose primary "job" within the family was that of a driver) had testified before Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan's congressional committee on organized crime that the Mafia did exist.
- Thomas Penfield Jackson
Thomas Penfield Jackson (born January 10, 1937) was a United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in 1982 after serving as president of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He is currently an attorney with the Jackson and Campbell, P.C., law firm. He graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1958, and from Harvard Law School in 1964.
- Jorge Luis Ochoa Vázquez
Jorge Luis Ochoa Vázquez was a drug trafficker from Medellín, Colombia who helped found the notorious Medellín Cartel in the late 1970s. The cartel's key members were Pablo Escobar, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Jorge Ochoa and his brothers Juan David and Fabio.
- Harry-O
Harry-O is the alias of Michael Harris, a black gangster currently serving time in prison. He was prominent in the 1980's as a crack cocaine dealer, as well as for his legitimate business ventures, such as producing Denzel Washington's Broadway debut play. In 1988, he was arrested for murder conspiracy, and is up for parole in 2005. He reportedly gave Suge Knight the money to start Death Row Records.
- Gene Gotti
Gene Gotti is a member of the American Mafia's Gambino crime family. He is one the brothers of John Gotti.
- Rayful Edmond
Rayful Edmond III, (born 1965), was a notorious drug dealer who is largely credited with introducing crack cocaine into the Washington, D.C. area. At his peak, Edmond was alleged to have sold over 2,000 kilos of cocaine a week, worth tens of millions of dollars, in the Washington, D.C. area. Edmond controlled as much as 70% of the D.C. drug trade in the late 1980s. He was known to have spent some $457,619 in an exclusive Georgetown store (Linea Pitti, …
- José Abello Silva
José Abello Silva was a top ranking member of Colombia's notorious Medellín Cartel. He was considered among the major drug traffickers in the Santa Marta region and the reputed chief of Caribbean coast operations on the cartel's behalf. During January 1987, Abello was included in a group of 128 major narcotics figures whose capture was ordered by President Virgilio Barco. Although he was captured in Barranquilla during that same month, he was released shortly thereafter, …
- Sonny Black Napolitano
Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano a.k.a "Mr. Blackstein" (June 16, 1930 Greenpoint, Brooklyn - August 17, 1981 Woodside, Queens) a capo in the Bonanno crime family, famous for having allowed FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone ("Donnie Brasco") to become an associate of the family and nearly "making" him (inducting him into the Mafia).
- Billy Hayes
Billy Hayes (born April 3 1947 in New York, USA) is a convicted cannabis smuggler whose story inspired the film "Midnight Express". Hayes, an American student, was caught trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey in 1970. He was originally sentenced to four years and 2 months in a Turkish prison, which was later extended to a life sentence. He escaped in 1975 to Greece, and then home. Hayes wrote a book on his ordeal, "Midnight Express", …
- Brian Charrington
Brian Charrington (b. 1956) was a British drug trafficker and owner of a car dealership in Middlesbrough who, along with Curtis "Cocky" Warren, operated in North East England during the late-1980s and eventually built a criminal empire with links to Germany, France, Spain and Austria as well as connections in South America, Israel and the United States. Using his personal yacht, the two sailed to France on visitor passports and, with 10-year passports, …
- Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana (Castelvetrano, Italy, January 1, 1946) is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and was the head of the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana family branch in Canada. He acquired Canadian nationality in 1978. He was born in Castelvetrano in the province of Trapani on Sicily. His grandfather and father were already part of Cosa Nostra. The family originated from Siculiana in the province of Agrigento, and is closely related to the Cuntrera-family through several mariages.
- Edward Lino
Edward Lino (Bensonhurst, Brooklyn - November 6 1990, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn) was a Sicilian-American capo in the Gambino crime family and drug trafficker. He is also a cousin of Bonanno crime family capo Frank Lino and brother-in-law of Salvatore Scala. Edward Lino a.k.a. "Eddie" was a close friend of John Gotti who helped the future don of the Gambino crime family murder Gambino crime family don Paul Castellano.
- Grant Krieger
Grant Wayne Krieger is a prominent advocate of legalization of marijuana in Canada. He openly admitted to using and selling marijuana from his home in Calgary, due to his own illness, multiple sclerosis, and various medical conditions of his customers. In 2000 Krieger won a judicial ruling, allowing him to use Marijuana for personal medical purposes. In June 2001 Krieger was acquitted on charges of possessing and trafficking Marijuana.
- Dole Chadee
Dole Chadee (born Nankissoon Boodram) (executed June 4, 1999) was a drug lord and convicted murderer. His base of operation was in Piparo, Trinidad and Tobago. Chadee was reputed to be one of the top drug lords in the Caribbean, but was never convicted of drug-related offenses. Together with eight members of his gang, he was convicted of the January 10, 1994 murders of Deo, Rookmin, Hamilton and Monica Baboolal of Piparo.
- James Ashley
James Ashley was a 39-year-old man who was killed during a police raid on his flat in St Leonards, East Sussex, United Kingdom, on 15 January, 1998. Ashley and several of the apartment's other residents were suspected of involvement in large-scale drug deals. Having previously served two years on a charge of manslaughter, Ashley had been involved in a pubroom stabbing several months earlier. A search of the premises later turned up a trifling amount of cannabis.
- Walter Douglas
Walter Douglas is a British drug trafficker, one of the richest in the United Kingdom, with an estimated worth of £20 million
- Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina, also known as Totò Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organisation in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive height ("La Belva" and "U curtu" in Sicilian respectively) although apparently they never called him these nicknames to his face.
- Ciro Mancuso
Ciro Mancuso (1949 -) was a Nevada based drug dealer convicted of running a $140-million marijuana smuggling operation for more than a decade. In cooperation with a foreign exchange student from Thailand, Ciro Mancuso built one of the largest domestic drug cartels in U.S. history. The son of immigrants from Italy, Ciro was a real estate developer before venturing into the lucrative narcotics business.
- Stephen Armone
Stephen Armone (Lower East Side, Manhattan 1900- 1960 was a New York drug trafficker and Gambino crime family caporegime. He was the older brother of Gambino capo Joseph Armone.
- Jesse James Hollywood
Jesse James Hollywood aka Spanner (born January 28, 1980 in Los Angeles, California) was a drug dealer and fugitive. He allegedly kidnapped and ordered the murder of Nicholas Markowitz. His drugs trade allowed him to acquire a small fortune with which he bought a $200,000 property in the San Fernando Valley area of Southern California and numerous exotic sports cars. He is currently awaiting trial in California, starting after 2007.
- John H. Wood Jr.
John Howland Wood, Jr. (March 31 1916 - May 29 1979) served as a Judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas before being killed by Texas assassin Charles Harrelson outside Wood's home in San Antonio, Texas on May 29 1979. His was the first assassination of a U.S. federal judge in the 20th century.
- Vincent Gotti
Vincent Gotti (b. 1952) is a convicted drug dealer and is the brother of John Gotti.
- Johannes van Damme
Johannes van Damme (1 June 1935 - 23 September 1994) was a Dutch engineer executed by hanging in Singapore for smuggling heroin. He was the first European executed in Singapore since its independence. Van Damme had lived in Nigeria for a while and was married to a Nigerian woman at the time of his arrest. He was arrested on September 27, 1991, at Changi Airport in Singapore. In a secret compartment of his trunk, 4.32 kilograms of heroin was found.
- Rolando Florián Féliz
Rolando Florián Féliz considered the most dangerous drug trafficker ever convicted in the Dominican Republic, currently being held in Najayo Penitentiary’s maximum security facility since May 1996. Florián Féliz was also convicted for the murder of Víctor Augusto Féliz, son of the reformist leader and ex- senator of Barahona, Augusto Féliz Matos.